Apple CEO Tim Cook Visits Foxconn's iPhone Plant In China
Last edited Thu Mar 29, 2012, 04:15 PM - Edit history (2)
Source: Reuters
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Apple Inc's Tim Cook, on his first trip to China as the chief executive officer, has visited an iPhone production plant run by the Foxconn Technology Group, which is being accused of improper labor practices.
China is the world's largest mobile market and already Apple's second-biggest market overall, but its growth there is clouded by issues ranging from a contested iPad trademark to treatment of local labor.
Picture handouts dated March 28 and e-mailed to Reuters show Cook seen smiling and meeting workers in the newly built Foxconn ZhengzhouTechnology Park in the north central province of Hebei. The facility employs 120,000 people, the handouts said.
Foxconn is a major part of Apple's global supply chain, assembling most of its iPhones and iPads, but has been hit by a string of worker suicides in recent years that activist groups blame on tough working conditions.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/29/apple-ceo-visits-foxconn_n_1387064.html
(vice premier Li Keqiang) hoped multinational companies would pay more concern to their Chinese workers.
In response to criticism of the working conditions at Foxconn’s plants in China, Apple has defended its policies and opened up its Chinese supplier factories for an internal audit by a labor rights group. (Which Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Dell, HP, Samsung, Asus, and all other major electronics makers have refused to do)
http://www.macworld.com/article/1166122/chinese_leader_asks_apples_tim_cook_to_care_for_workers.html
I hear that Mike Daisey was outside the gate, across the ocean, and in his upscale New York apartment, where he witnessed the entire thing.
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working conditions.
I think MOST people from American companies would care about the working conditions of the people. Sure, they take advantage of the cheap labor, but I'm not sure they actually THINK about what is required of the workers. I believe the Foxconns of the world probably don't paint a realistic picture when reporting to the American companies.
That being said, and feeling strongly that we should be manufacturing most of this stuff HERE, I hope that Cook will take steps to improve life for those workers. I think he -- and other American companies who utilize these facilities -- have the clout to actually enforce some change.
ALL American CEOs should be there with Cook. 
And yes, the CEOs of the chain link fence companies should be right there with Tim Cook.
I think blaming Apple (based on what we know now was 'fiction') as being responsible for this was just unfair, but people were too happy to do it because they love to hate Apple.
The important thing is that I hope all this attention DOES result in improvements and changes. I know that's what you hope for too, onehandle. 
...with their horde of cash, and make Apple products, 'Made in America.' Some agree with me, some go all Ayn Randian on me.
I have also contacted Apple with that wish. Sadly, it doesn't seem likely, but that won't stop me from asking.
billions of dollars that are overseas (something else I don't understand) because of the tax penalties they'd pay here. Maybe 'penalties' is the wrong word.
If Apple could build factories here and bring some of that cash back to give Americans jobs (and give us the pride of Made In America) I'd be more than willing for them -- and others like them -- to receive tax breaks. They would be providing something in return, as opposed (as far as I can tell) to Big Oil.
You can't fault any publicly traded company, who is mandated by law to make a profit, to take steps and moves that would impact them in a financially negative way. So until we make it WORTH their while, I don't see any of them coming back to the shores of U.S.A. 
...that people who bought cotton from the South could also be anti-slavery, cuz we all get caught up in the net of trade and need to stop and think about things, and take a lot of time and personal effort to track products back to their source and to evaluate information, and make ethical judgements. It's not so easy to do. Was everyone in England who bought a dress or shirt of cotton spun in India but manufactured in England responsible for the poverty in British-run India? They had to think it through (with Gandhi's help). And what about the horrible conditions in the sweatshops in England itself? Was everyone who bought a dress or shirt from those shops guilty of oppressing and killing the poor women who made them? It's difficult to take responsibility for everything we buy.
And it's even more difficult now, in our wildly "consumer society" with products not only from everywhere on the globe but often from multiple countries--for instance, cotton from the toxic fields of Uzbekistan, spun I don't know where, is then shipped by oil-dripping tankers to the sweatshops in the Mariana Islands, where poverty-stricken women shipped in (as "indentured slaves"
from Asia turn it into Gap jeans and sweatshirts, which are then shipped to our ports. Not until I read a dockworkers pamphlet from a union in Oakland did I have any idea that toxic cotton growing was a main cause of turning the Aral Sea into one of the ten most toxic places on earth; and my knowledge of the Mariana sweatshops came by another, indirect route. Now I boycott Gap stores but this information was not easy to get--and where does the boycott end? Other transglobal clothing manufacturers are equally bad. I could go on and on about them and other U.S.-based retailers in Latin America. And, of course, then there are food, household appliances, electronics and...hey!--electronic voting machines for the U.S. "market" manufactured in sweatshops in the Philippines! Our voting machines!
It's a BIG and COMPLICATED problem--and it's easy enough to pick one big company, like Apple, and dis all of its customers because THEY outsourced to China and the customers ought to know this and ought to do something about it.
The problem is political, here. We need to take back our government--not easy to do, but it IS the source of this multi-faceted problem and would be the vehicle to solve it with, if we as a people had any such power left. Of course we can do boycotts and pressure campaigns and we can think and think about all of the products we buy, and do research, and try to avoid transglobal corporations (try doing that with oil!) and try to help local "good guys" (or even distant "good guys," on coffee beans, for instance). But we can't do it for everything and we can't stop it happening, again and again, that products sold here are harming workers and the environment somewhere else, for the profit of the very rich. It will keep happening until we reclaim our democratic power. My suggestion is to start with the corporate-run, 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines foisted off on us during the 2002 to 2004 period to keep this Corporate Coup d'Etat in place over us forever. And start with the truly "bad guy" corporation that controls most of those 'TRADE SECRET' voting machines (and manufactures them in the Philippines): ES&S (which bought out Diebold).
I love hearing the actions you've taken and I totally agree with your view on the voting machines.
Maybe we can actually use the products made in China such as the Androids or iPads to do good. With more people connected it becomes much easier to inform others on the source as well as the cost in human and environmental suffering for the products they buy. Just as we are using them now to inform others of the repercussions.
I do tend to come down pretty hard on people who support corporations I think are poor upholders of human rights & nature. I share the same vitriol for BP & Lockheed as I do for Apple and other exploiters of third world labor.
However in our "wildly consumer society" I do have to hold my tongue in many instances. And for the most part, I can't fault the average Joe for not knowing the source or the manufacturing methods of the item he is consuming. The constant bombardment of advertising and the well honed feelings of inadequacy that can come from not having the newest toy can wreak havoc on their psyche.
Was the person who used the slave cotton really bad? Not really in my estimation. Was the person who made money delivering slaves or the slave "owner" himself bad? At the time there may have been differences in opinion but I think today we can safely say it was heinous.
When someone becomes an "owner" by being vested in Corporations that make money by the most dishonorable of methods they can be called out and should be called out. As much and as many times as they can be. Especially on a free thinking, liberal discussion forum such as this. If DU existed during the strikes of the early 1900's I'd like to think the majority of people here would be heavily on the side of the laborers and not worrying about the loss of the product, investment returns or how it might affect their retirement income. In fact, they might even decide they don't want to be partial owners of those companies and thereby being rewarded and responsible for the conditions imposed.
Anyway, rambling away and I need more coffee. Let us continue the good fight to bring about an end to corporate controlled government and a paper trail in elections again!
